Sunday, March 28, 2010

It seems my "good girl" status has remained intact, even after being out of school for nearly two decades (I got my master's degree in 1993)! I got an A- for my mid-term grade and a 13.5 out of 17 on the quiz in my class at MSU! :D Mom's response was that I "never liked those minuses." I told her anything with an "A" was fine by me. My father always said anything lower than a "B" may as well be a "Q." :p

We had our demo and studio time on cuttlebone casting this week. It took me two tries to get mine to turn out right...at least I wasn't the only one. It will eventually be a sterling silver pendant, although right now it looks like, as the teacher said, "a sculpture...silver with rocks!" There are small stones in the bottom of the pan where we pour the molten metal into the cast, and the silver leaked through my cast into the stones. There was more than enough to make my piece, so the excess metal that leaked out the bottom kind of formed a base for the "sculpture" and also hardened on some of the stones. It actually looks pretty kewl, so I took a picture with my cell phone camera to preserve it before I cut the "base" off. It's now the wallpaper on my phone. ;)

On the techy side of things, I traded in the HP Deskjet I had here at home for a shiny, new HP Officejet 6500 all-in-one printer/copier/scanner/fax. I'm so excited! I got a $50 rebate for the trade-in, plus I had something like $78 in Staples Rewards dollars accrued from recycling used printer cartridges and previous purchases -- I got my business cards and letterhead there, plus other miscellaneous office supplies -- so the machine ended up costing me $108 WITH the 2-year warranty! :D PLUS, I returned four ink cartridges I had bought for the old printer and didn't use, for which I was refunded more than $140! So, in effect, the printer was FREE! LOL Only in America, folks! :p ;)

Been busy with requests for earrings lately. I still have a bunch of projects "in the wings" that haven't had time limits on them and/or are especially challenging for one reason or another. Don't worry (you know who you are if any of them belong to you), I haven't forgotten any of them! I have a notebook with everything written down -- one of my purchases at Staples ;) -- so nothing gets lost in the shuffle. :) There are also a number of jewelry-making contests coming up in the next couple of months that I want to enter, but I have to create items especially for them. Hopefully, I won't miss any opportunities due to time constraints. :\